


A Canvas, Some Paint, and Imagination

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts 2: Because the old one is quite full [14]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Antivans, Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28007709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonage.The week's prompts (Oct 31) were Halloween themed. I elected to take the visual prompt and run with it. I made a treat rather than a trick or scare.The daughter of Sevarra Amell and Zevran, Marisol, tries to paint a picture of the place where her mother studied magic; she doesn’t exactly get things right.
Relationships: Female Amell & daughter
Series: Reddit Prompts 2: Because the old one is quite full [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918846





	A Canvas, Some Paint, and Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> The image that inspired this work can be found here:  
> https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81F7QjUoEHL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

The young artist smiled to herself and mixed up a small dab of black paint to mix in with the bigger glob of white that waited patiently on her wooden painting palette. After getting just the right shade of “castle stone illuminated by moonlight” gray, she began bringing the castle that sat in her mind’s eye to life upon the canvas before her. Mamá had spoken of the place sparingly, but what she had shared made the young woman want to act while the image was still fresh in her mind.

Marisol took a step back and admired her work. _What else needs to be here? Ah! Yes, yes! That will be marvelous!_ Mixing a deep, nearly black, gray, she put in the beginnings of a proud and tall beech tree. _Hm… autumn. Yes, it shall be in autumn!_ The young mage smiled to herself as she completed the naked trunk and branches. Cleaning her brush, she dipped it into a blob of inky black paint. She then began using delicate strokes until the form of a raven perched on one of the branches came into being on her canvas. Once the bird was complete, she stood back and pursed her lips. _It needs a little something more,_ she thought. Bringing out a smaller, more delicate brush, she began working, brows knit in deep concentration, and her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. A while later, she finally dipped her brush into water to rinse it out, her fingers aching from being so tense for so long. _Worth the effort,_ she thought with a smile as she inspected shimmering spider webs in the beech tree.

She decided to press on, lest she lose the image in her mind before the work was complete. Mist covered the earth in the foreground, while skeletal trees clawed their way skyward in the middle ground. Truly, it was the stone castle on the hill that drew the eye, partially silhouetted due to the full moon beaming just behind and slightly above it. She’d just finished painting a few sparse stars in the cloudy nighttime sky when the door opened and startled her. Thankfully, the painting didn’t suffer for it.

“Marisol, I’ve been calling you. Your food is going to get cold! Come and eat!” her mamá scolded from the doorway.

The younger mage looked up from her canvas in a mild panic. “Mamá? Oh, I did not hear you!”

“But first, you need to wash that paint off your face, my firebug,” Sevarra chuckled. “It looks like you gave your freckles some new friends.”

Mamá gracefully glided across the room and came to a stop behind her. She laid a gentle hand on Marisol’s shoulder. A soft pleased coo escaped her. “Oh, what is this of? It’s beautiful!”

The young mage bit her lip in hesitation before answering. “The tower. The one from your stories.”

Mamá arched an ebony brow. “This is beautiful, mija. But Kinloch Hold was on an island in the middle of the biggest lake in Ferelden.”

_Brasca!_ Marisol swore to herself. _A fairly big detail to forget!_ “If it were in the middle of a lake, would it not be easy for the apprentices to just swim to shore and run away?”

Mamá let loose with a belly laugh. “Oh, mija. Lake Calenhad is _massive._ It is nearly as long north to south as the kingdom it calls home! It is several miles from the tower’s dock to the shore. That said, one of my friends _did_ escape by swimming to shore once. It took a month to find him; alive and well, thank the Maker. That young man managed to escape from our Circle no less than seven times.”

“I’ve heard templars are horrible to their mages in Circles. How did he avoid being made…” she looked side to side before whispering the word “Tranquil?” She shivered after it left her lips. She’d never seen such a person herself, but she heard the hushed tales shared among students at the academy. The Tranquil were considered little more than the living dead, only better smelling.

“Oh, they wanted to do that to him. He was lucky that my master, the First Enchanter at the time, intervened. He knew my friend wasn’t a malicious person, he just… did poorly living a life in a secluded community. I think he missed his family terribly,” the elder mage answered.

Marisol frowned. She did not know this man her mother spoke of, but she already felt sorry for him. She would’ve wanted to run away too if she were taken away from her parents and siblings! Circles of Magi were utterly foreign to her. She felt a flutter of gratitude that mamá and papá had chosen to have her attend an Academy of the Arcane, instead.

“What’s a First Enchanter?” she asked.

Mamá wore half a smile. “The mage who is in charge of an individual Circle of Magi. They would be the equivalent to myself at our Academy, mija.”

“So, he was the headmaster?”

Mamá nodded. “Yes. Similar, but Circles are run much differently than the College’s academies. But that is a conversation for another time. Come now, let’s wash up and go eat. Papá worked very hard making that meal.”

A spark of excitement went down her spine. “Did he make polvorón, too?”

“Well, let’s wash up and find out, shall we?” her mother answered with a wink.

Marisol raced to the washroom, already salivating at the thought of the sugary, nutty treats that were but one of her father’s specialties in the kitchen.


End file.
